


Stripped

by kdm103020



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Hurt, M/M, POV Tony Stark, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9396002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kdm103020/pseuds/kdm103020
Summary: Tony's thoughts during his first solitary moments after Civil War





	

It takes him three hours to get the suit off. 

Over the years, he’s perfected the Iron Man armor to be as indestructible as possible, but at the end of the day it always comes down to a balance between strength and flexibility. This particular model can break the sound barrier and fire off repulsor blasts hot enough to melt steel, but not even the gold-titanium alloy could withstand the full impact of vibranium backed by super-soldier strength. The star-spangled Frisbee of death had left a dent all along the left side of the suit, artificially smashing the breastplate and the back guard into a single unit and destroying the hinges that connected the two pieces. He is quite literally trapped into a suit of his own making. 

Yeah, that’s not symbolic at all. 

He has to teach FRIDAY how to be his personal jaws of life. It’s somewhat awkward, and painstakingly slow considering he has to generate code and assemble hardware all while the suit puts pressure on his chest cavity. The warped metal digs into his side, and he can feel his heartbeat in the places where the jagged edges have punctured skin, but it’s not as if the armor’s going to pry itself off. So he works. He affixes a diamond tipped circular saw to one of the assembly bots, fashions a scan that distinguishes between suit and skin, and waits for FRIDAY to determine exactly how deep to cut. 

When the last pieces of the suit finally fall away, he takes a deep breath but almost immediately regrets it. Something’s definitely bruised, probably cracked, but fuck it all if he’s going to a hospital when ACE bandages and bourbon can solve that problem. 

Of course, that admittedly shaky logic had been frowned upon post-Battle of New York. Apparently, fighting off a telepathic shapeshifting alien army functioned as a supremely crappy yet surprisingly effective bonding activity, and overnight he had had teammates who paid attention to things like his blood alcohol content and time spent in REM sleep. 

Annoying? Yes. Invasive? Incredibly. Unwelcome? —

To be honest, he’d initially had no idea how to react to everyone’s sudden investment in his life. Pre-New York, the number of people with a sincere emotional investment in his life numbered exactly two, but Rhodey had the unfortunately tendency to go off and play with machine guns in the sand for months at a time and Pepper took home a paycheck with his name on it. Not exactly the easiest of relationships. Then, overnight, the number of interested parties increased dramatically, and he’d had no way of dealing with the fallout. Suddenly, he had a bevy of (equally) screwed up people invading his tower and insisting that he change his (perfectly fine and long-established) habits. Bruce, who eventually learned to place snack food within arm’s reach, in hopes that he would consume enough to get him through the latest all-nighter. Natasha, in an unfathomable display of hypocrisy, demanding that cracked ribs required x-rays. Steve, whose remonstrations slowly morphed from “The Avengers need you,” to “We need you,” to “I need—” 

A shower takes priority over any form of social interaction. A showerhead won’t call a press conference, ask what happened, or demand an immediate manhunt for “wanted fugitives” and “enemies of the state.” He can handle a shower. 

Of course, that all assumes he is capable of reaching said shower in the first place. He spends most of the elevator ride to the penthouse clutching his side and trying to take shallow breaths. He’d thought that getting the suit off would free up his lungs, but breathing is paradoxically more painful now that his ribcage has room to expand. Without his metal casing, he has to deal with the body beneath the armor, and that’s never been his favorite activity. 

Damn, he’s rocking the metaphors today. 

He steps out of the elevator and gingerly begins stripping of the undersuit, trying to avoid touching himself more than absolutely necessary. He can hear the shower running in the next room – thanks FRIDAY – and by the time he makes his way to the bathroom, he’s managed to peel the spandex away from his skin. The spray hits his skin within a painful intensity, and the dirt, sweat, and dried blood run off his body in a swirl of brown and red. He runs his thumbnail underneath his other fingernails, scissoring the nail back and forth so that every trace of Siberia disappears down the drain and into the sewer where it belongs. 

Yet try as he might, he cannot seem to get rid of the memories. As the water removes all traces of his little Russian excursion, his mind goes into overdrive to remind him of what’s happened. He can wash the blood from his knuckles, but he can’t unsee the image of the blood on his father’s face, can’t unhear the screech of repulsors hitting vibranium. No, the memories will last far longer than the bruises, and just in case the universe decides to give him a break and grant him short-term memory loss just this once, he’s got a shield in his basement and an empty space in his bed to remind him of just how much he’s lost. 

He knows he can’t stall forever. The Tower can churn out hot water indefinitely, but the UN will want answers, and FRIDAY can only stall Ross for so long. Someone has to answer them, and considering the official team leader has absconded to parts unknown, that someone will have to be him. Sighing, he reaches for the control panel, shuts off the water, and immediately recoils from the cold. 

He doesn’t anticipate being warm again anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, so kudos, comments, and suggestions would all be greatly appreciated!  You can find me [here](http://kdm103020.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.  

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [salvageable (the safe inside my armor remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9914561) by [navaan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan)




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